That's an interesting read, I had heard that the GFS was getting an upgrade but I didn't know that it would be so significant and include upgrades to other models. Higher resolution and computing power is key, but I remember when they ran the GFS with ECMWF initialization data, that the GFS suddenly performed just as well. This means that even with the GFS having 3dvar as opposed to the ECMWF having the much better 4dvar, the GFS even then was a comparable model if only it's initialization was better. One can't help but think that with a ten fold increase in computer power leading to as good or better resolution than the ECMWF that even if no money was spent on initialization data, that the GFS would be much better and of course we know that money will indeed be spent on it's initialization. These is great news.

John.. Thanks for the vintage footage of the 78 East Coast Blizzard... My site name is 78 yanks primarily because I was immersed growing up as a 10 year old back that year. Well the 78 winter and the 78 yankees both made history and linked my childhood to this year forever. Here along the jersey shore we were also connected to that storm and it came down hard with strong blizzard winds for 2 days.. Back then cable was a infant without many channels and weather maps were primitive, this video was not seen by me back then as New york /Phila were my feeds using a roof antena and a rotor. We had many snow and even rain storms that year the streets were either frozen, snowcovered or flooded the entire winter in my neighborhood.. I would love to go back in time and relive 1978, as a child it was a simple time and as a kid it was fun ! Harvey Leonard spoke of never again would this occur not even our families would see this again, the ominous component was the large intense cold high pressure that was entrenched. That was how it was back in the later 70's early 80's we had a lot of cold spells in winter that have seemed to vanish except for a few winters since.